French Poker Stars Strike Succeeds: More to Follow

Available in French (Courtesy of Google) Les joueurs de poker français arrêter de jouer pendant quatre heures sur PokerStars

French players gave hopes of a smooth transition to a new higher rake structure and segregated poker for French only players (regulated by the French Government) a blow this Sunday as they staged a 4 hour sit out (strike) at the tables on PokerStars (currently the World's largest online poker operator).

Many were frustrated that smaller rivals had absorbed part of the tax increase while they argue PokerStars had used the increased tax as and excuse to further increase rake in other areas. You can see photos of the strike in action as well as more commentary and discussion below.

French Players Banned from Pokerstars Sunday Million and Other WorldWide Tables

The official dot com for PokerStars is now closed to the French. After successfully gaining a license to operate a .fr domain the worlds largest poker room by cash game volume (and by most other measures you could think of) will be forced to remove French players from all it's international tables.

Military: Free Supernova VIP Status on PokerStars?

An interesting discussion has broken out on 2+2 where a number of posters are backing either VIP upgrades or 'automatic qualification' periods for soldiers who are out on deployment under the PokerStars VIP scheme.

For those of you guys who don't know, PokerStars runs a VIP scheme where players must put in high levels of volume in order to start picking up rewards. If you miss out one month and don't achieve enough you get dropped back to the beginning and don't receive any rewards (discount on the rake you pay).

Naturally deployed soldiers will suffer greatly from this. One minute they are at home grinding a ton of hands and close to making top VIP status then the orders come in and they are preparing to ship out. All that hard work grinding towards SuperNova status can be wasted.

It's definitely something I'd support given the sacrifices the men and women who sign up to defend the many countries represented in the PokerStars player community make. However it seems unlikely it will be honoured by the site that puts so many hoops in the way of getting good VIP rewards in the first place!

A good short term solution for American soldiers for example who are looking to get decent rewards without any risk of losing out whilst on duty would be to sign up with a room that offers top level VIP rewards. At This Poker Week we currently recommend Merge Network's 30% Rakeback on Black Chip Poker. If you sign up through our link you get VIP payments and bonus all on top of rakeback (not deducted!). No need to qualify for rewards, no need to worry about downgrades while your away. Most people think the games are easier too!

You can try the software for free as we run a freeroll every 4 hours where $50 is up for grabs and no deposit is required!